No Shirt, No Shoes, Know Jesus

P.U.S.H.

I am not a fan of cheese.  I’m not talking about the delicious, mouse-enticing, slices that make our burgers sooooo much better!  No, I’m talking about corny attempts to inspire or cajole through the most cliché of slogans.  Unfortunately for me, Christian organizations seem to specialize in this type of cheese.  Frankly, I have a hard time walking through the Christian bookstore without my eyes permanently rolling up in my head.  If I am confronted with one more item emblazoned with W.W.J.D., I might make a whip and start overturning tables. (Which I am confident would be Jesus’ response in that situation)  So, typically, I tend to shy away from acronyms and pithy wordplay when it comes to my faith.  That is why it is so surprising that I find myself writing about one today.

 

    A couple weeks ago, my wife shared a particular acronym with me that really challenged me.  At first, I wanted to dismiss her out of hand.  After all, she discovered it in a piece of Christian fiction, which I find agonizing. (They all tend to be romance novels with God substituted for the sex)  But, turns out there was a morsel of wisdom in this book.  So I want to share it with you.  If you’ve heard it before, remember I’m late the game cause I try to avoid these things.  If it makes you roll your eyes till you can see your own brain, I can sympathize and offer my humblest of apologies.  So here it is…

 

    P.U.S.H.  Pray Until Something Happens. I know, I know, still a little cheesy, but try to look pass that to the principle behind it.  The concept of perseverance in prayer is not a new one but I would suggest it is one that many of us fail to master.  We tend to muster up a bit of faith to pray initially, but we quickly sputter out when the answers don’t come on our predetermined time table.  I know I can be a prayer-quitter.  Things don’t go my way instantly, so I take my metaphorical ball and go home, whining all the way.  Yet instantaneous answers are not what prayer is all about.  The process of engaging our faith, strengthening our resolve, and recognizing where our help ultimately comes from is far more critical to us than a swift answer.  We literally become different people through the process of prayer, as it shapes us into the image of Christ. (who also didn’t get instantaneous results and who experienced the Father giving Him an emphatic “no”) Jesus recognized the need for prayer as evidenced by the amount of time He withdrew Himself to be with His Father.  The difference between His approach and ours is we give up and He wouldn’t.  He even taught us to pester God because He knows the time in pray is for our benefit. (Luke 11:5-9)

 

    So my encouragement for us today is to not quit when we need something from the Lord, to pray until something happens!  It may not be what you wanted, it may take longer than you wanted, and you may get a resounding “no!” but I guarantee it will be for your betterment.  You cannot pursue God in prayer and not come out winning in the end.  Don’t quit!  Don’t stop praying!  Keep P.U.S.H.ing!  (*groan* I made myself sick with that last one!)

What I Hate About Church Part III

I never trust a smile.  Smiles are adept liars, communicating happiness, peace, and contentment whether or not those emotions actually exist.  Smiles will tell you that everything is ok despite the world being shattered.  Smiles will tell you that everything is under control despite the despair that is spreading like a cancer.  No, you can never tell with a smile.  The eyes, however…well, that’s another story. 

 

    If you glance up that couple of inches from the lips to the eyes, you will discover some truth.  Can’t disguise the emptiness that hides behind the eyes with some nice words and a quick smile.  The eyes always give it away.  You can see the pain and the heartache, the confusion and fear.  The eyes practically scream the truth of disillusionment, of deferred dreams, of crushing disappointments.  You can discover some real truth in the eyes.

 

    Where did I learn this nifty bit of observation, you may ask?  Why, from church of course!  In my thirty seven years as a believer, I have seen more lying smiles and dead eyes then I can count.  A common Sunday morning presents the opportunity to gaze into eyes desperate to share the difficulties and pain of life that are silenced by a smile that says, “I’m a-ok, in Jesus name!”  For an organism that is rightly focused on the truth, we have become quite practiced at deceiving when it comes to our lives.  We pretend to be overcomers when we are being overcome.  We claim victory while suffering defeat.  We are destroyed by sin and sing of being set free.  This should not be!  How can we ever hope to grow if we cannot be honest with one another!  I’ve seen it for too many years and, frankly, I hate it!

 

    It’s easy to see why we would hide our lives from the church.  We thoroughly explored the idea of judgment yesterday.  Desperate people want help, not criticism.  They want to share their lives and not be emotionally slaughtered in the process.  And, if we are being honest, they are more likely to believe that they can find that in a bar after a few drinks than in any church.  This has got to change.  We have got to create an environment where people can feel free to be who they are, so they can become who God imagined they could be.  This is not easy.  Life is messy and people more so.  If they feel free to be open and honest, some crap is gonna come out.  We don’t like that at church.  We want everything nice and clean.  But that’s not life.  Real life is a broken, filthy, experience that we so need Jesus to rescue us from.  That’s not going to happen if we keep pretending, if we keep forcing people to assume a veneer of holiness simply to conform to the image of what we want church to look like. 

 

    So here is the challenge, people of God.  Stop attempting to sanitize the church.  When we do, we drive out the very people that our Father so desperately wants there.  I am not suggesting we give license to sin.  I am suggesting we give grace to sinners.  Remember, you are one too.  No matter how long we have known God, there are days when we need to be able to be honest as well.  We need to allow the church to be the place where that can happen.  It’s messy, silly, sometimes ugly, but always good.  And that certainly doesn’t suck.

What I Hate About Church Part II

When I was in college, we would have chapel everyday.  Think about that.  We have already determined that church can suck, imagine having to endure that possibility everyday.  I’d like to say that 3 or 4 out of five services were great. I’d like to say that but I’m trying not to lie on this blog.  No, if we got one great chapel a week, I was thrilled.  Typically, not only were they boring and predictable, they were weird.  Put a hundred and fifty bible school students in one room, engender an emotional response, and – PRESTO – you have the formula for craziness.

 

    My favorite example of this, and the reason I cannot eat pumpernickel bread to this day, were our communion chapels.  In an attempt to get creative (perhaps some folks should disregard yesterday’s post), the faculty would forgo serving the Lord’s Supper in the traditional manner and would ask students to take it together, the caveat being that the person you chose to share the bread and wine with was someone that you were offended by.  The thinking behind it was praise worthy.  What an excellent way to create student unity!  The execution, however, left something to be desired…especially for me.

 

    Now, I know that this will be hard to believe, but your humble narrator has managed to offend a time or too.  Or fourteen.  Let’s just say that I quickly learned that my unique sense of humor and penchant for saying what I think was not very appreciated at school.  Communion chapels meant a line (I wish I was exaggerating), a literal line of people, wanting to share a piece of bread (the aforementioned pumpernickel…shudder!), a shot of grape juice, and a healthy dose of personal commentary for yours truly.  Apparently, the communion elements lent them a little courage and I routinely started hearing comments like, “I think you’re arrogant” and “I really don’t like you” and “I don’t see you ever being successful in ministry” at which point, we would partake of the sacrament and they would leave feeling better.

 

    I hated those chapels! (go figure) and it became for me a representation of something that I cannot stand about church: it’s judgmental nature!  Where else can you go and have total strangers tell you how much you suck at life?  I’m not talking about a convicting message or an invited opinion that you have sought out from a pastor.  No, I’m talking about people that you see once a week who think they have the spiritual right to sit in judgment of your life.  At this stage of my life, when I find myself confronted by attitudes like this, I am simply disappointed.  We could be so much more.  But those who don’t know Christ, who may be searching for this good news that we are advertising, might walk away permanently offended.   Something’s gotta change.

 

    The problem is, one of the reasons to assemble together is to challenge one another to live like God wants.  The Bible even encourages us to share our failings with one another in order to overcome them. (James 5:16)  Accountability and integrity are partially developed by allowing someone to get all up in our biz-natch.  Frankly, we cannot hope to grow spiritually unless we allow other followers of Jesus to challenge us in our pursuit of right living.  But how do we do this without creating an environment of judgment?

 

    One of our core values at The Open Source Church is Community.  We are working hard to establish something that is more than a weekly religious experience.  We want to be a community of people that are involved in each other’s lives, to be there to offer love, support, a shoulder to cry on, and yes, the occasional kick in the butt if needed.  In order to accomplish that, we have to take the time to get to know each other.  I may not like it when a friend calls me out on some bad behavior, but they have earned the right to do so through relationship and I will consider what they say.  The same right must be earned in our community.  Accountability and the right to speak correction is earned through relationship, not granted simply through attendance.  We want to see people be what God imagined for them and, at times, that means challenging them towards holiness.  But love, grace, and friendship always come first.  And that doesn’t suck.

What I Hate About Church

C’mon, admit it.  There are things about church that ya hate.  Most of you won’t have to think very long before you come up with a list of items that can make Sunday mornings unbearable.  Even the most die-hard of church goers occasionally find things not to their liking.  You may not want to admit it, but sometimes church sucks!

 

After thirty seven years of being around this institution, I could vent for hours about things that really grind my gears.  I have more than a few white hairs that are the result of the silliness that can go on within these hallowed walls.  Being a pastor actually makes it worse at times.  Things that I hate, that I thought I could simply do away with once I had the power (I hope that made you picture me as He-Man), I have found to be necessary.  There can be solid reasoning behind the some of craziness that exists only within the confines of the church.  So here is some insight into some of the things that I hate most about church that I have learned to see the value of (and how we have tweaked them a bit to change the level of suckitude.)

 

Ok, lets deal with the biggie first.  All together now, everyone say it with me…church is BORING!  This is not an exaggeration.  I have experienced it first hand.  For years!  Growing up in Non-denominational churches, I could call the order of service long before I set foot in the door: Three songs and a Sermon!  Sometimes they would switch out the boredom for anxiety with a rousing alter call and the opportunity to put your shame on public display, but usually it was the standard three songs and a sermon.  This gets old, quick.  Even the most charismatic speaker runs out of good stories after a year or two and then usually starts recycling.  I think that’s the reason so many people church hop.  They are just looking for some fresh stories.  And, in all honesty, if I have to sing a version of “Our God Is An Awesome God” one more time, my head will explode from my body.  For the love of all that is holy, people, switch it up!

 

The thing is, worship is important.  Sermons are important.  Scripture teaches us that worship is a necessary interaction with God.  We cannot fully experience Him without engaging in it.  Scripture also commands us to preach God’s Word.  It specifically states that lives are changed through preaching.  Check out Romans 10:14:

 

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?

 

    The reality is, the things that sometimes can seem so boring are critical to our spiritual lives.  So what can we do to relieve the boredom and yet keep what is important? Mix things up a bit.  Don’t be so predictable.  If a movie clip can illustrate your point better that the same, tired, old stories, then pastor…shut up!  If you have played a worship song for the last five years, eighty-six that bad boy and learn a new one!  Add some comedy. (God has a sense of humor)  Interject current events.  Use *gasp* secular music as a connection point.  Be self deprecating.  (people want to laugh at you!)  Preach first and worship later… I don’t know, be creative!  This is harder than the simple standard.  It requires work and creativity from ministry leaders.  But it’s worth it.  You’d be surprised how much more of your message people retain if they are awake.  So ditch the boredom, get creative, and give folks one less thing to hate about church.